Somethings, WAHMs, You Just Have to Know When to Step Back

 This has been a difficult weekend for me, I must confess.

For the past several months I have been working nonstop. Rather than hire someone to help out around the house, be it with the cleaning, errands or the childcare, I have done it all.

I have painfully worked that Sleeping Child Schedule morning, noon and night.

I have also worked when the kids were watching a show, or I've checked email during family time.

I recently posted about taking Saturdays off. This was something I promised my family that I would do, because lately, all they have seen of me has been a glazed over looking mom whose eyes are bulging out of her head due to too much computer use.

The problem, the dilemma, the issue is this: I have worked very, very hard over the past several years to grow my company, and I have a done a darn good job. I've gotten repeat clients. Right now I'm working on a site for a client who I believe will go national. I've gotten a great portfolio behind my belt as far as web design and logo design has gone, as well as with my writing.

I have, like I said, worked very hard.

Right now, business is booming. The economy has slowed the full website design packages, but now that blogs and modifiying templates is hot, I've stayed steady.      

A few times my husband has mentioned the idea of hiring someone to come in and help: either a mommy's helper or a house cleaner.

I've declined this arrangement. I don't know, I'm sure it would work out fine, but first of all I don't want to feel as though I have to work very hard to have someone come in and clean or take care of the kids, and I feel guilty doing this. I'm their mother, I'm the house cleaner. Does any of this make sense?

Perhaps not. Or perhaps so. Like I said it has been a tough weekend.

This weekend, I decided to step back some from the business. It was like running full steam ahead for 20 miles of a marathon and then stopping short of the finish line.

I have things that I have not yet done, that I wanted to do, that I had plans to do.

I just can't do them right now.

I can't continue to work this amount of time each day. It's not been healthy for me. I've been tired, and getting sick, which I never do. I've been run down and frustrated and angry with everything because I can't keep up with anything. It's like having your hands in twenty different pots. You just don't have that many hands.

So, for now, I'm going to stop taking as many jobs as I have been taking. It's like a kick in the gut, really. To be so busy for so long and then to step back from it a bit. I'm not giving up completely, oh no, and when the girls are just a bit older and both are in school I will forge on full steam ahead again.  

But, as you know, kids grow fast. And fast they will grow, and I don't want to wish this time away or figure out down the road  that while I was pounding away at the keyboard they were growing, growing, growing, and I missed it all.

There is a fine line, this balance. I don't believe we can attain it, as Ive written before. I believe we just have to do what we can do in our own lives to make it work for us.

I love my company and I will continue to take jobs. Just one job at a time for a while, so that the rest of the day I can spend thinking about my family and myself more than I think about what has to be done at the office.

I'll keep you posted on how this stepping back is going. I know it will be hard. I recently spoke to a client who closed up her graphic design business. She said it was a physical pain as much as an emotional one, and she is still grieving what is gone. At the same time, she is celebrating her newfound freedom.

I am not letting this go completely. I love what I do, and when the girls are older and in school that is what I want to be doing. I know it, in my heart, and I also know that I have taken my company from nothing to something in just a few short years, and I can see its potential. When I have more time to focus on building my company I believe I can do just that.

For now, though, the girls call. They are amazing little creatures, and last night, when I was putting my youngest to bed and she wouldn't go and needed a little extra cuddling because she has been sick, I realized that I am making the right choice. Without five different jobs going on I had that time to spend with her, and when I looked in the mirror and saw her little hands wrapped around my back, and felt her head nestled into my chest, I realized that these are the moments that count and I don't want to spread myself so thin that I can't just sit back, take a deep breath and enjoy them.